Sampled Lebenswelt

The singer and musician Joy Frempong is currently working under the pseudonym Oy. She associates lively Avant-pop, odd electronica, abstract hip-hop, futuristic soul, Dadaistic world music and Debussy-esque classical music. She works with piano, synthesizer, accordion, xylophone, samplers and loop-machines. Accompanied by her singing.

In the norient podcast she talks about how she works. What kind of samples does she use, and how exactly? What noises and sounds does she like especially and which ones does she discard?

Joy Frempong – Oy – norient.com podcast by norient

Joy Frempong was born 1978 in Ghana. Her father is from Ghana, her mother from Switzerland. She grew up in Dietlikon, near Zurich, passed her A-levels in 1998 and signed up for Bern Jazz-School two years later. Even though this education helped her to develop today’s vocal flexibility, she states in an interview with music critic Nick Joyce, it was never her aim to be the perfect jazz-singer, able to warble all jazz-standards. Fairly long, Joy Frempong was a member of the Zurich experimental formation Lauschangriff and has worked with the improvisation trio Hans Koch, Martin Schütz und Fredy Studer. Together with Fredy Studer she also works with the band Hans Koch, Martin Schütz und Fredy Studer.

She often travels back to Ghana, Joy tells us in the podcast. She is very interested in the local music scene (check out the norient article on Hiplife: Zwischen Hiplife und Afrofunk), though she has not been able to make many contacts so far. With Bern duo Filewile, Joy Frempong toured 2009 through South Africa.

Her first solo album under the pseudonym OY or Oy Rempong is called First Box Then Walk (Creaked/Namskeio). (Creaked/Namskeio).

Norient spoke to Joy Frempong in the context of the project Sonic Traces: From Switzerland.